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Week Three Team Reflection

Learning Team B
LDR/531
December 15, 2015
Mr. Gary Winder

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Week Three Team Reflection
Numerous things can create a barrier for interpersonal communication. The indicator of
the most problems amongst the workgroup is the Silence Barrier. The reading explains that silent
communication is both common and problematic (Robbins & Judge, 2013). People choose to
not communicate when there is a lack of trust in management or in the culture of the company.
The team chose silence as the topic of discussion for a communication barrier, which is defined
by the absence of information. This week the group discussed some examples of how silence
effected the operations in the workplace.
Silence, as a barrier to effective communication can mean so much despite the lack of
communication. Silence in any relationship (professional and personal) can be misinterpreted
and may cause a misunderstanding. It is easy to ignore problems, but things will eventually be
revealed at one point and may escalate dramatically.
As a previous manager, Jean experienced coming across many conflicts between
employees where silence played a factor as a barrier to effective communication. As one
employee tried to remain professional and stay silent about her issue between another coworker,
the coworker misinterpreted as something that did not bother her. Due to the employee not
speaking out and communicating how she felt, her coworker felt that it was okay to continue to
treat her the way she was treating her. After a while of accepting the verbal abuse from her
coworker, things escalated quickly to where she could not handle it and started a verbal
confrontation on the sales floor. This was not a good reflection on herself as well as the company.
If she had spoken up in the beginning and made her coworker aware of how she felt, it could
have been prevented. Since Jean was not aware of the situation, there was no way for her to
remediate the issue.

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Silence creates a challenge for communicating due to the simple fact that a person who
withholds information in turn keeps others from knowing. This keeps a group or team in the first
stages of forming rather than growing and learning from each other.
As a manager, silence is not something that Eli promotes to the officers at his site. When
dealing with security there has to be a free exchange of ideas and information otherwise there
could be a breach of security. Eli recall an experience which could be the textbook cause of
silence, an officer who was very observant of their surroundings was viewed as a know it all.
This led the officer to withdraw from the team and stopped providing valuable information that
would have helped the entire group. Having to ask for information rather than having been
provided with it takes time that may not always be available. The exchange of information
provides new learning and helps the team or group become more trusting with one another, as
silence would make certain individuals feel withdrawn.
Communication is the key component in building trust amongst coworkers and ensuring
that everyone is informed of things that are going on. Too often people allow their personal
feelings to blur the message and choose to avoid contact moving forward. This same person will
then begin to question anything that person says and maintains a negative perception. Cicely
experienced a comment from a manager being taken out of context, ultimately affecting their
relationship. In this scenario both the manager and Cicely should have spoken up once the
nonverbal communication and behavior change; but since there was a lack of trust, silence
became the option. The situation eventually boiled into a toxic relationship among the two
employees.
Jonah agrees with the team as far as silence being a critical barrier of communication. He
also sees silence as a critical channel of communication, arguing that silence in fact has the

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potential to speak more than words. From within Jonahs interpersonal interaction experiences,
he posits the idea of strategic silence and it being a profoundly powerful instrument in terms of
communication. Primarily speaking, substituting direct emotional expressions relating to an
interaction with silence, is tactical in nature. Should the effort be conscious or not, such silence
works to strategically beget a desired outcome. Teetering the line between verbal and non-verbal,
occurrences seem a difficult thing for most to recognize, but when it is, it can be telling of a users
manipulation efforts toward self interests. Strategic silence appears in many constituted forms
and is a dynamic learned behavior, with exchange rules that are individually negotiated in dyadic
communication situations.
The team has discovered that each scenario of silence had the same result. That feelings
can be hurt, people can feel disrespected and the situation boils out of control. It proves that
silence is not the option and issues should be addressed immediately. If there is a change in a
coworkers facial expression that seems that they were offended or the frequency of
communication decreases, people should reach out to see what is going on. The Silence Barrier is
a killer of communication and productivity in the workplace.

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References
Leadership in Organizations. (Yukl, G., 2011). Eigth Edition. Pearson. University of Albany
State University of New York.
Robbins, S., & Judge, T. (2013). Organizational Behavior (15th ed.). New York, New York:
Pearson.